A Commentary on The Spiritual Life
Welcome. This is a much abbreviated version of the full website. It is still under construction. If you enjoy the material here, I urge you to visit the “parent” website on a tablet, desktop or laptop computer, at https://www.zoofence.com.
There you will find a completed product offering a far wider assortment of stuff, including many additional articles, letters, cartoons, artwork, forum posts, books, stories and more. As one example, The Gazebo on the full site is home to many more considerations of the spiritual, dating years back, than are included here so far.
To return to this page from any of The Zoo Fence pages, mobile or desktop, click either on a “home” link or on “The Zoo Fence” logo at the top of every page.
Why The Zoo Fence? One night in 1974, in a fishing camp on the windward side of Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands, we had a dream about publishing a journal called The Zoo Fence. The name probably originated from the practice of the Honolulu Zoo to allow artists to display their artwork on the zoo fence along Monsarrat Avenue in Waikiki. But beyond that, who knows what the subconscious meant by the phrase! In any case, it made sense in the dream, and when, more than two decades later, The Laughing Cat decided to issue a newsletter which evolved into this website, the choice of a name seemed already to have been made.
To me, to us, the universe consists of an infinite assortment of diverse stuff — me and you and my house and your car and that street and this tree and kitty litter and those planets and yesterday and yonder and my dreams and your hopes. But to a Teacher, the universe (actually, the Universe), consists of nothing more (or less) than I Here Now.
Thus, if we were to ask a Teacher, any Teacher, “Where were you before you appeared to me in this room?” she would reply Here. “And where will you be when I no longer perceive you in this room?” she would say, Here. And if we were to ask “When?” she would answer Now. To a Self-Realized Teacher, there is only one personal pronoun — I — and there is only one place and time: HERE NOW. In Zen, no-mind.
What we perceive as me and my life and the world (and here and now) is an illusion created by our mind, about which Vasistha’s Yoga suggests “Cut down this deadly poisonous tree, which looks as unshakeable as a mountain, with the sharp axe of enquiry.”
Just so, This body is me is the mind, an illusion taught and learned and believed. Erase it.
One day in Eden, Adam sees Eve for the first
time.
“I am Adam,” he says to her.
“Yes, I know,” Eve replies, “so am
I.”
In The Beginning Chapter 4
The Lord is my Shepherd,
I shall not whine.
· A Continuing Fiction ·
The Stories of Peter K. Wensleydale
· In The Beginning ·
The Eden Conspiracy Unveiled
· Chicago Fools ·
The words we use.
A seeker’s rule of thumb:
If it can fit into your mind, it’s too small.
DISCLAIMER: Before you proceed any further, please consider the following. We have no credentials that you too do not have. We are simply spiritual seekers writing here on the basis of our own personal experience. In effect, then, what you find on The Zoo Fence is an expression of personal opinion based upon personal observation of our own lives. Please read it as such. If any of it is of any use to you, we are delighted. But please do not mistake it for authoritative guidance or advice on any subject. We neither wish to nor are we qualified to, issue anything like that. In a word, as regards everything on The Zoo Fence, your best guide is your own common sense.
Intense,
abiding, and spontaneous
Yearning for God
is a self-sufficient practice,
and the simplest path.
More of our Books & Stories
(and a lot of other stuff) are on
the desktop or laptop version
The Zoo Fence
A Commentary on The Spiritual Life
Copyright © The Laughing Cat
Contact: thezoofence AT gmail DOT com
about us
